1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to a product dispensing system.
2. Related Art
In the related art, in a vending machine vending product such as canned beverage or beverage in a plastic bottle, a product storage rack is disposed in a product storage in a main cabinet which is a main body of the vending machine. The product storage rack includes a product storage passage that extends in a vertical direction and a product discharging device that is disposed in a lower part of the product storage passage.
The product discharging device includes a lower pedal and an upper pedal. The lower pedal and the upper pedal are linked to an AC solenoid as an actuator via a link and move forward to and backward from a product storage passage by supplying power to the AC solenoid.
In the product discharging device, in a standby state, the upper pedal moves backward from the product storage passage and the lower pedal moves forward to the product storage passage. Accordingly, the lower pedal comes in contact with a lowest product stored in the product storage passage to regulate downward movement of product stored in the product storage passage.
In the product discharging device in a lower part of the product storage passage storing the corresponding product, when a product discharge command is issued, the upper pedal moves forward to the product storage passage via the link by supplying power to the AC solenoid, and comes in contact with a second lowest product to regulate downward movement of the product and the products stored above the product. By supplying power to the AC solenoid, the lower pedal moves backward from the product storage passage, only the lowest product is discharged downward, and the lower pedal moves forward to the product storage passage by a biasing force of a spring when the lowest product gets out of the lower pedal. Thereafter, when the supply of power to the AC solenoid is stopped and the AC solenoid is in a non-powered state, the backward movement of the lower pedal having moved forward to the product storage passage is regulated and the upper pedal moves backward from the product storage passage, whereby the product discharging device is returned to the standby state.
In the product storage rack, two product storage passages are generally adjacent to each other in the front-rear direction and thus the product discharging devices respectively applied to the product storage passages are coupled to each other back to back and are disposed in the product storage passages. In the product discharging devices, the AC solenoid as a drive source is required for each of the coupled product discharging devices.
Accordingly, a product dispensing system has been proposed in which product discharging devices from which an AC solenoid has been removed are disposed back to back, a drive source and a cam member are disposed therebetween, and the product discharging devices are driven by driving of the drive source and rotation of the cam member so as to achieve a decrease in manufacturing cost by reducing the number of drive sources (for example, see JP 2749917 B2).
In the product dispensing system proposed in JP 2749917 B2, since the product discharging devices from which an AC solenoid has been removed are disposed back to back and the drive source and the cam member are disposed therebetween, it is possible to decrease the number of drive sources in comparison with the number of product discharging devices, but it is difficult to separate two product discharging devices which are elements coupled back to back from each other to use only anyone. That is, the product dispensing system proposed in JP 2749917 B2 can be applied to a product storage rack including an even number of product storage passages adjacent in the front-rear direction but cannot be used as individual product discharging devices for a product storage rack including an odd number of product storage passages. In the product dispensing system, in general, two types of product discharging devices having different widths are prepared to correspond to types of the product storage rack, that is, product having a relatively small maximum width and product having a relatively large maximum width, and the product discharging device having a width corresponding to the maximum width of the product stored in the product storage rack is mounted in the product storage rack.
There is a need for a product dispensing system that can achieve a decrease in manufacturing cost and flexibly work depending on the number of product storage passages adjacent in the front-rear direction.